Betty Willis, an employee of Western Neon, designed the sign. The sign was built and installed in 1959 by Las Vegas-based Western Electric Displays (aka Western Neon) under contract with Clark County. The design is characteristic of the Googie architecture movement. On the back or north side, which is less frequently photographed and thus is lesser known, the sign reads "Drive" on the top line and "Carefully" on the second in red capital letters, with "Come Back" in blue on the third line, in script, and "Soon" all capitalized in blue on the fourth line. Under "Las Vegas" is the word "Nevada" in blue, all capitalized, in a much smaller font.
The words "Las Vegas" are on the next line in red, all capitalized, and large, almost filling the width of the sign. The south side of the sign reads "Welcome" inside the silver dollars, with "to Fabulous" in blue, in a 1950s-style cursive, underneath.
The cabinet is faced with translucent white plastic and covered with blue and red painted text. The intersecting vertical and horizontal lines of the star extend over and wrap around the frame that is created by the two poles and the cross piece, which give the star a dynamic, explosive appearance. The circles each contain a red painted letter, outlined in neon, which together form the word "Welcome." Crowning the sign, located between the two poles and just under the crosspiece is an eight-pointed, red-painted metal star outlined with yellow neon. In a nod to Nevada's nickname as "the Silver State," across the top of the sign are white neon circles, designed to represent silver dollars. It is double-backed, internally lit, with a border of flashing and chasing yellow incandescent bulbs outside around the perimeter. The sign is a horizontally stretched diamond shape, with the top and bottom angles pointed while the side angles are rounded. The poles extend above the top of the sign. The sign is a 25-foot-tall (7.6 m) classic roadside pole design, mounted offset on two flat poles which are joined by a cross piece at the top. Such distinctions are usually ignored by both locals and tourists, who refer to the entire metro area as "Las Vegas". The sign, like most of the Strip, sits in Paradise and is located roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the actual city limits of Las Vegas. Some consider the sign to be the official southern end of the Las Vegas Strip. The sign is located in the median at 5100 Las Vegas Boulevard South, north of the historic stone pillars of the old McCarran Field on the east side, and across from the Bali Hai Golf Club and the (closed) Klondike Hotel and Casino on the west side. The sign was designed by Betty Willis at the request of Ted Rogich, a local salesman, who sold it to Clark County, Nevada. The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is a Las Vegas landmark funded in May 1959 and erected soon after by Western Neon.